Going through Erin Feinberg’s recent photo book, “Diehards” (Anthropy Arts) -- an exquisite collection of black-and-white shots taken of music fans during concerts over the last decade -- it’s hard not to notice how all fans are not created equal. The crowds for Aerosmith, Lady Gaga, Judas Priest, Bob Dylan and Jay Z couldn’t look much different from one another. And yet, most of them also share something that’s equally impossible to miss -- unmistakable expressions of excitement, fervor and just all-out joy.

That’s what makes Feinberg’s collection so appealing -- it captures that feeling that any regular concert-goer can tell you about, the in-the-moment exhilaration that you just can’t get anywhere else. Certainly not at the office or while grocery shopping or mowing the lawn, or whatever other mundanities her subjects were taking part in before donning their concert garb and heading to the show.

And what garb there is -- Feinberg captures KISS army members in full makeup, piercing-heavy punks, bearded Deadheads, parrot-headed Parrotheads and an exultant woman with Bob Dylan painted on her prosthetic leg. Some are portraits, with the fans adopting the sly poseur stances of the artists they’re there to see. But most are just in the crowd, doing what it is fans do.

Here’s how Feinberg puts it in her introduction:

I have photographed these congregations from every vantage point — around the stages, oppressively hot parking lots, muddy festival grounds, intimate clubs, massive stadiums, and often right smack in the middle of the mosh pits, where I encountered my fair share of bloody noses and broken lenses. And in the photo pits, while all the other photographers elbowed one another to get a perfect shot of the performers, I was focused on the other show — the audience. I couldn't resist the challenge to capture that front row euphoria.

By turning her camera around, Feinberg records an essential -- maybe the essential -- part of a concert that so many other music-centered photo studies tend to miss. In many ways, the crowd is the concert, and vice versa, and Feinberg’s photos show how and why. It’s a sentiment captured by no less an expert than Bruce Springsteen in an essay written for the book:

On our recent tour, I met kids who’d just seen us for the first time, along with folks who’ve been to hundreds of concerts over three decades. With the exception of age, they’re more similar than different. And every night at eight o’clock, it’s those faces jammed up to the front of the stage, smiling, singing, living every note of your song, their song, taking every breath with you, or dancing in the rafters that continue to fuel your rock and roll passion. A passion reaching all the way back now to the small bedroom where you sat young and alone, clumsily playing, singing, writing, hoping, dreaming of . . . this exact moment . . . of your fans.

Photographs of Springsteen fans holding their request signs hopefully aloft are among the best in “Diehards” -- a ’93 Springsteen show was the author’s first, natch -- but they have plenty of competition. Mosh-pit shots capture a feeling of sweat-fueled release combined with not a little bit of claustrophobia, tattooed torsos abound, and devil-horn brandishing metalheads offer a perfect slice of hard-rock heaven. And who knew anyone could get that excited about James Taylor?

If there’s one frustration it’s that the photos aren't labeled, so in many cases you’re left to intuit who the diehards in question are there to see. But in the end I guess who’s performing doesn't really matter -- what counts is how the fans are reacting. And thanks to Feinberg’s instincts behind the lens, those reactions are priceless.